C.Y.Manikanhaiya

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND SIX SIGMA: C.Y.Manikanhaiya

            William Edwards Deming was an American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer, and consultant. Deming is widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II although he is perhaps best known for his work in Japan. There, from 1950 onward he taught top management how to improve design, product quality, testing and sales. Deming made a significant contribution to Japan becoming renowned for producing innovative high-quality products. Deming is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage.

           Let us first see the definitions of TQM which has been collected from the different web site.

• A product-quality program in which the objective is complete elimination of product defects.
  services.eliteral.com/glossary/managerial-accounting-glossary.php
• This is a general process framework that grew out of the work of Deming in Japan after WW II. The framework is focused on specifying the processes necessary to ensure incremental process improvement. Unlike most process frameworks, this one also provides a large number of intellectual tools to be used during process improvement and it also defines some processes in considerable detail.
  pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman/glossary_of_oomda_terms/
• A methodology for continuous monitoring and incremental improvement of a supply-line process by identifying causes of variation and reducing them. Originated by Deming in the 1950's, and widely applied in the Federal government, where it was sometimes called Total Quality Leadership (TQL).
  www.balancedscorecard.org/basics/definitions.html
• A management philosophy committed to a focus on continuous improvements of product and services with the involvement of the entire workforce.
  strategicsourcing.navy.mil/reference_documents/defs.cfm
• Total quality management. A management strategy that focuses on continuous improvement.
  accuracybook.com/glossary.htm
• Total Quality Management is the continuous or incremental improvement of existing business processes over time. This entails moderate risks as compared to BPR, which is typically high risk.
  www.creotec.com/index.php
• A movement, an industrial discipline, and a set of techniques for improving the quality of processes. TQM emphasizes constant measures and statistical techniques to help improve and then maintain the output quality of processes. Often associated with Edwards Deming.
  www.bptrends.com/resources_glossary.cfm
• An approach to quality assurance that emphasizes a thorough understanding by all members of a production unit of the needs and desires of the ultimate service recipients, a viewpoint of wishing to provide service to internal, intermediate service recipients in the chain of service, and a knowledge of how to use specific data-related techniques to assess and improve the quality of their own and the team’s outputs.
  www.qaproject.org/methods/resglossary.html
• comprehensive quality management, a general term and management principle that indicates means for long-term and sustained business excellence; ”our way of succeeding with customer satisfaction”, ”making money in a sustained and balanced way both in the longer and shorter term”.
  www.finnevo.fi/eng/contents/iso9000_terms.htm
• Total Quality Management. A comprehensive system of measuring the efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability of the total process.
  www.asresearch.com/techinfo/glossary.asp
• TQM entails creating a total quality culture bent on continuously improving the performance of every task and value chain activity.
  highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072443715/student_view0/glossary.html
• TQM is a complete re-organizing of the work process and the workplace by application of principles of “teamwork’ and work “teams” that are supposed to involve the worker and give them greater control in their work. It involves “teams” of workers monitoring and controlling each other in their work process, production and application of agreement or employer policies. It results in a scaling down of the workforce and increase of low morale.
  psacbc.com/stewards_dictionary
• A business improvement philosophy which comprehensively and continuously involves all of an organization's functions in improvement activities.
  www.pdmamn.org/glossary.htm
• assuring that everyone in the organization is responsible for quality
  www.321site.com/greg/courses/mis1/glossary.htm
• As an English acronym, TQM stands for Total Quality Management.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TQM

                        Now from the analysis of the above definitions it is clear that despite of diversity in the definition some of the basic concepts are common which are as follows:

 A system is a set of interrelated elements which are interconnected and interdependent to each other. So the TQM is basically a system which comprises of cultural, technical and managerial system which acts as sub-system of big system. So the quality product or service will be only when all the system will work smoothly.

 Customers are important source of providing the basic ideas of creativity and quality aspects. Besides the suggestions they also provides the feed back of product or service so that based upon these information one can improves the standard of quality. That is why these days’ companies are providing the toll free customer services.

 In the total quality management philosophy individual and lower floor level employee is not blamed for the any type of mistakes. It beliefs that if any quality problem is there means it begins with senior manager which peculate to downwards and resulting the problem.

 A successful TQM environment requires a committed and well-trained work force that participates fully in quality improvement activities. Such participation is reinforced by reward and recognition systems which emphasize the achievement of quality objectives. On-going education and training of all employees supports the drive for quality. Employees are encouraged to take more responsibility, communicate more effectively, act creatively, and innovate. As people behave the way they are measured and remunerated, TQM links remuneration to customer satisfaction metrics.

To achieve customer satisfaction, the company has to respond rapidly to customer needs. This implies short product and service introduction cycles. These can be achieved with customer-driven and process-oriented product development because the resulting simplicity and efficiency greatly reduce the time involved. Simplicity is gained through concurrent product and process development. Efficiencies are realized from the elimination of non-value-adding effort such as re-design. The result is a dramatic improvement in the elapsed time from product concept to first shipment.

Awards for Quality achievement

The Deming Prize has been awarded annually since 1951 by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers in recognition of outstanding achievement in quality strategy, management and execution. Since 1988 a similar award (the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) has been awarded in the US. Early winners of the Baldrige Award include AT&T (1992), IBM (1990), Milliken (1989), Motorola (1988), Texas Instruments (1992) and Xerox (1989).

            In early days in Japan while analyzing the situation of industry in Japan,  Deming offered fourteen key principles for management for transforming business effectiveness. In summary:

1. Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provide jobs.
2. Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins and put it into practice by teaching it to employees, customers and suppliers.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Instead, improve the process and build quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost in the long run. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly, and forever, the system of production, service, planning, of any activity. This will improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training for skills.
7. Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration. The aim of leadership should be to help people, machines, and gadgets do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers.
8. Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.
9. Break down barriers between departments. Abolish competition and build a win-win system of cooperation within the organization. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team to foresee problems of production and use that might be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work. This will mean abolishing the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Definitions of Six Sigma:

            Some of the definitions of six sigma has been collected from the different web site which will clear the concept of the six sigma and which are as follows:

·         A method or set of techniques, Six Sigma has also become a movement focused on business process improvement. It is a quality measurement and improvement program originally developed by Motorola that focuses on the control of a process to the point of ± six sigma (standard deviations) from a centerline, or put another way, 3.4 defects per million items. A Six Sigma systematic quality program provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes. ...
www.theaccountspayablenetwork.com/html/modules.php

·         A rigorous and disciplined methodology that utilizes data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company s operational performance, practices and systems. Six Sigma identifies and prevents defects in manufacturing and service-related processes. In many organizations, it simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection.
www.dmreview.com/resources/glossary.cfm

·         A 'measure of goodness' involving the application of statistical methods to business processes to improve operating efficiency, reduce variation, avoid defects and reduce waste.
www.industryforum.co.uk/glossary.htm

·         a failure rate of 3.4 parts per million or 99.9997%...
thequalityportal.com/glossary/s.htm

·         A process improvement methodology created by Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder at Motorola in the early 1980's. The approach employs a rigorous project methodology, which utilizes statistical analysis to identify root causes. As a process measure, it means 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
www.ketch.ca/resources_glossary.html

·         A measurement of process quality. Sigma is the mathematical symbol for standard deviation. As an example, about 93% of all results from a normal population (ie results are equally distributed above and below the mean) fall within 3 standard deviations. The use of six sigma in a manufacturing situation means that the company uses all the total quality tools to improve a process so that the tolerances for the process is at or better than six standard deviations of the process spread. ...
www.bpic.co.uk/jargon.htm

·         Six Sigma is a highly structured program for improving business processes and represents the latest incarnation of the quality movement. The program, grounded in efforts to improve manufacturing quality during the 1980s, brings the methods and analytic tools of engineers to bear on the questions, What matters to customers?, and Where will changes to work processes most improve these points?
www.data-core.com/glossary-of-terms.htm

·         a lean manufacturing methodology based on 3.4 defects per million products; a similar certification process to ISO to improve performance.
www.navigateinternationalstandards.com/terminology.htm

·         A term generally used to indicate that a process is well controlled, ie plus or minus 6 sigma points from the midpoint in a control chart. The term is usually associated with Motorola, which named a major quality initiative "Six-Sigma Quality."
www.leanmean-manufacturing.com/glossary2.html

·         Structured process improvement program for achieving virtually zero defects (3.4 parts per million) in manufacturing and business processes
www.qlic.ca/glossary.htm

·         An invention of Motorola in the 80’s to try to turn SPC into a philosophy and apparently to make it “FUN”. SPC is one of many practical tools that helps to solve problems, nothing more, nothing less; to turn into anything else is to miss the point.
www.spctraining.co.uk/jargon.html

·         Six Sigma is a quality management program to achieve "six sigma" levels of quality. It was pioneered by Motorola in the mid-1980s and has spread to many other manufacturing companies. GE Aircraft Engines strives to operate at six-sigma levels of qualit. It continues to spread to service companies as well. In 2000, Fort Wayne, Indiana became the first city to implement the program in a city government.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma

Analysis of the Definitions

            Now from the analysis of the above definitions it is clear that despite of diversity in the definition some of the basic concepts are common which are as follows:

Defect: The most important aim and objective of the six sigma is reduce the defects and achieve the 99.9997% defects free product. It will not only improve the image of the company but it will also be economical.

Process Capability: The most important aspect is how to achieve that much level of accuracy and the production. It can be easy to achieve this on paper but the main concern is about how to achieve that capability to achieve the six sigma level of accuracy.

Variation: Here variation means what the customer sees and feels better in due course of time. Means if we have to be in market we have to make the quality product which customer wants. Sometime it happen that for management and customers standard of quality may differs.

Design for Six Sigma: Now a days there are so many designs and software is available for the six sigma which we will see later on which are designing to meet customer needs and process capability.

Sigma is a symbol meaning how much deviation exist in a set of data. It is sometime called a “Bell curve”. In statistics it is called a standard normal distribution, but the idea is the same. In the bell curve 50% of the value lies above the mean (average) and the 50% value lies below the mean. In statistics we take it a step further and delineate certain data points within that timeline.

            Different level of companies with respect to different levels of sigma is presented below in tabular forms:

In six sigma there are three levels or belts which are based on level of competence in understanding and applying related tools. These belts are as follows:

Green Belt : Green belts are at the lowest level. This is the basic analytical tools, works on less complex projects.

Black belt : These are above the green belts but below the master black belts. Holders of these black belt emphasis on application & analysis, works projects with help from green belt.

Master Black belt : These are at the highest level of competencies. The main task of these master black belt holders are to understand application and statistical theories behind application, trains other belts, leads project reviews.

      However the actual definition and competencies for each belt can vary with organization and training institutions.

• Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.
• Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future comparison.
• Analyze to verify relationship and casualty of factors. Determine what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.
• Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using techniques like Design of experiment.
• Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.

• Define the goals of the design activity that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.
• Measure and identify CTQs (critical to qualities), product capabilities, production process capability, and risk assessments.
• Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
• Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. This phase may require simulations.
• Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement production process and handover to process owners.

Process Mapping: Illustrated description of how things get done, which enables participants to visualize an entire process and identify areas of strength and weaknesses. It helps reduce cycle time and defects while recognizing the value of individual contributions.

1. Six Sigma was industry specific
2. The average was very subjective in nature, it was very difficult to define average
3. There were problems in finding whether six sigma has been achieved or not.

Thomas Packard, D.S.W(1995). TQM And Organizational Change And Development.In Total Quality Management in the Social Services: Theory and Practice. Burton Gummer and Philip McCallion, Eds., Albany, NY: Rockefeller College Press.

John Stark (1998) A FEW WORDS ABOUT TQM  www.johnstrak.com